


La Croix blanche / The White Cross

by FrenchGuardsman



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, French History RPF, World War I - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Original Fiction, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:01:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchGuardsman/pseuds/FrenchGuardsman
Summary: 1914. The Lacroix brothers are conscripted into the First World War. Philippe is a skilled lieutenant; Armand is a pacifist musician. Guided by the advice of his brother, Armand discovers modern warfare with sheer horror but one support; the men he will meet in his journey. They are all artists. They all think that art can be strong enough to stop, even one second, the madness of a war. What harm could come from simple drawings and songs?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> Anyway, here is the first draft of a WW1 novel I am writing. First draft means that, by the end of the story, I will probably be unsatisfied with a lot of stuff (to be honest, I already am) and the published, finished version will be a lot more different. You can consider this as a prototype, I suppose?  
> I am conscious that, despite the centenary, not a lot of people are interested in the First World War, but I have studied for so long that I think that there are things that must not be forgotten, such as the martyrdom of the men who said 'NO' to mass murder.  
> Apart from the angst, I think that this is a nice story to read altogether, about art in the Great War mainly - I let you discover this work and I hope that you will appreciate it.  
> This work is originally in French - please keep that in mind. There will be some untranslated terms, and some (very) badly translated sentences. I wish I could be completely fluent in English!  
> Enjoy!  
> The author
> 
> (IMPORTANT: This was written in French. It's FULL of French culture references - at almost every chapter. There will be a lexicon at the beginning of each chapter to better understand those references.)
> 
> \----
> 
> LEXICON
> 
> Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) was a socialist politician known for his pacifist views and his strong opposition to the outburst of World War I. Because of his opinions, he was assassinated one month before the beginning of the war by Raoul Villain.
> 
> Alsace-Lorraine is a French region which shares a frontier with Germany. It was lost to Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and such a defeat remained on every Frenchman's mind until 1914 when a strongly vengeful spirit was set. France declared war on Germany, on 1870, because of a political 'trick' made by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
> 
> Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) was the President of the French Council from 1917 to 1920. With a successful military career, he will be nicknamed 'Père La Victoire' (Father Victory) after the armistice of 1918.

The summer of 1914 was characterized by a stifling heat, in such a way that the Parisians would lock themselves up in their shuttered flats, plunging into an oppressive darkness and heat. Among these apartments, the Lacroix family. It is a beautiful house, ornamented, colored, carved sometimes. The libraries are well furnished, and there are remarkable paintings hanging on the walls from one room to another. Looking out the window, a few floors below, a garden inspired by the green spaces of Paris Haussmann. In the living room, a piano a few decades old. On the edge of the piano, a vase filled with blue and red flowers. And at the other end of the dwelling was Armand Lacroix. He was a young man with fine and beautiful features who, having just returned from his work, was endeavoring, for once, to have a serious and important expression.

"Philippe, I heard a very surprising rumor in the corridors of the Opera.

\- A rumor in the corridors of the Opera? So it must be true!

\- Are you ever serious, sometimes?

\- I am a very serious man. Besides, I was working until you came to disturb me."

Pen and ink at hand, Philippe could only smile at the sight of his brother, a young pianist dressed in a three-piece suit still too wide for his frail morphology. Armand sat down in front of the elder, frowning.

"Finally, will you listen...

\- Then what rumor is heard at the Opera these days? The old conductor almost fainted while preparing coffee? A ghost lurks behind the scenes? Or did you speak with great passion of your muse, Jean Jaurès, to your bored comrades?

\- Stop making fun of me. This is a rumor you must have heard about, since it concerns the army.

\- Well! Stop digressing, and talk.

\- It appears that France will really declare war on Germany."

And there, under the distraught gaze of the young musician, Philippe burst out laughing. And it was a peculiar vision: this officer of the army, whose face was indeed severe and serious, adorned with sideburns as fashion no longer wanted, was cheerfully laughing at the youngest.

"Armand, you are an unfortunate fool! Where have you been in those recent years? Did you drink too much Absinthe or did Fauré's scores force you to shut yourself up in your room? Yes, we are going to declare war on the Germans! It was absolutely obvious. I am disappointed: I thought that you loved Jaurès.

\- I adore Jaurès!

\- Then you have no excuse!

\- Philippe, listen to me..."

As the laughter had fallen back, there was for some seconds a strange silence, a certain uneasiness. Or perhaps it was only Armand's feeling.

"I thought, my brother, that it was only words thrown into the air by some warlike parliamentarians, as it is so often heard. Finally, you will not contradict me when I say that we have been talking about freeing Alsace and Lorraine for forty years already. And when our father came back from the front, he told us how stupid we had been to fall for Bismarck's trick, that we would get back to it. I believed him. Although I thought that no one seriously thought of declaring war. But we are here. And I do not want you to leave.

\- Are you joking? This is my job! I have to go to war!

\- You are an officer.

\- What does that change?

\- You will be a target of choice. Philippe, you have served the flag enough. Discharge yourself honorably, have mercy!

\- Perhaps do you think I like to kill and die? You have too artistic a mind to understand it. I have made you read, when you were a child, the writings of the philosophers of Antiquity, and not a single one doubted the utility of defending his country. To be a soldier is not to hate one's neighbor, but to love one's country. You are young and naive, Armand, that is why you are a musician and not a soldier, you look like an angel and you always have your mind elsewhere; You understand the young dancers much better than you understand me, but I still love you a lot."

Armand did not try to convince his brother. An officer, in its meaning, is a stubborn man. There are events that are done by the force of fate and that even the best orator can not prevent.

"It is true, Lieutenant, that you are far too serious. I sincerely think that you would look much more elegant if you slipped the stem of a flower into the pocket of your jacket.

\- What nonsense. Have you ever heard that phrase from Clemenceau? _War is far too serious to be entrusted to the military._ "


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LEXICON  
> The 'bleuet' has several meanings.  
> 1\. It is a flower; a cornflower, in fact.  
> 2\. Its name has 'blue' in it, and it has been used towards the end of the war by WW1 veterans to nickname young soldiers who had just arrived in the frontline, whose uniforms were a perfect blue in contrast with the muddy uniforms of the 'Poilus'.  
> 3\. At the end of WW1, it has become the national flower of remembrance; it is the French equivalent of the poppy.
> 
> 'With a flower on his rifle' - it is a literal translation of 'la fleur au fusil' which is a French idiom referencing to how confident and naive were the French soldiers on their departure, thinking they would be back with a victory for Christmas.
> 
> 'Briscard' - a veteran. The 'brisques' were symbols on the upper sleeve that showed how many years the soldier had been in duty - a 'briscard' is someone who has a lot of 'brisques'.
> 
> 'The black hussars of the Republic' - primary school teachers.
> 
> 'A Lebel' - the Lebel M1886 rifle. Standard issue French firearm at the time of WW1.
> 
> 'To take the key to the fields of honor" - it's a pun between two French idioms. To take the key of the fields: to flee. To fall on the field of honor: to die for one's country.
> 
> 'Boches' - a pejorative nickname for the Germans.

For an active army officer who had raised his little brother with humanism and love of peace, there was something unthinkable: general mobilization. Who, in France, thought that their fathers, brothers, and sons would be snatched from them in a few hours? Because the war was too serious for the military, it was preferred to send civilians there.

Armand was the sweetest pacifist, but like every Frenchman on this August day, he was resigned to the duty that was to be done. On the dock of the train station, he had huddled up against a lieutenant in full uniform, whom he adored more than anything, and from whom he was to separate at once. Philippe had ruffled the blond hair of the man who was much smaller than himself, had laid a kiss on his forehead, and had smiled with the tenderest affection: "All will be well, my dear bleuet. We'll be back for Christmas. You will not forget, young man, to send me letters often and tell me what drawings and music sheets you will have created thanks to the inspiration of the battles."

And this is how this twenty-two-year-old man, who had escaped military service by mischief, found himself climbing the steps of a steam train from another age, on which someone had readily engraved or written in chalk phrases that promised to go straight to Berlin. Armand had no desire to go to Berlin. His cramped tie prevented him from breathing; or was it anxiety?

While he was still in his civilian clothes - the perfect example of the young bourgeois, with his hat - he sometimes saw, walking in the corridors of the train, soldiers in red and blue uniforms - Armand remembered that his father had almost the same - which reminded him, every second, of his destination. No one in those wagons knew where they were heading,  they only barely knew that it was towards the Belgian frontier; but all knew that they were going to _war_.

Everything contrasted in Armand. His blond hair and blue eyes did not fit in with his black suit, like a day of mourning. He was melancholic. Hardly had he had time to sit in the most deserted wagon that the train had already moved with great noise and steam, leaving behind it the city which he knew by heart to lead him to lands he did not know. Philip, him, would do well. He had traveled all over France, he was intelligent, he was experienced, there was nothing he did not already know.

This face with a juvenile thin mustache and a spark of innocence in the gaze, it is called the face of the _bleuet_. It is the young soldier who, still cradled with illusions, leaves one day in August 1914 with a flower on his rifle - sometimes both. It is the silent boy who, huddled in the back of a seat, makes his pencil scraping the paper, inspired by the paintings of Detaille. For he still imagines - what is wrong with that? - that one makes war with horses and honor.

Scarcely had he finished a brief sketch of one of the soldiers than he had seen, that Armand was interrupted by the sound of studded boots. In front of him sat a corporal with a rough face and a rural accent, as it was so often heard in France; at the number on his collar, Lacroix recognized that he was from the one hundred and seventy-third infantry regiment. It was not a Parisian regiment. The old briscard apologized: he was away from home when the bells of war rang.

"How old are you ?  
\- I am twenty-two years old, _mon caporal_."  
\- Corporal alone, that will do," the soldier objected, laughing, "but have you escaped military service?"  
\- Yes, _Corporal alone._ I pretended that I had a severely handicapping eye disease.  
\- So what? You better pretend that again.  
\- Why? I am ashamed of what I did two years ago. This time I will not flee, or I will shame my family too. It is a matter of duty, you understand...  
\- You see, I don't understand. You're a bloody fellow. But honor is a great word. Your family won't care about honor, when they will see you returning in several pieces... or not returning at all.  
\- Are you trying to scare me?!"

Lacroix had indeed gathered his bravery. But when he had half risen and confronted the hazel eyes of the other man, he knew that he had to show discipline and simply sat down again, regretting immediately, from the height of his inexperience, to have contradicted the unknown soldier with the Mediterranean accent.

"You young men are all the same. You speak of patriotism, of duty to your country, that you would lose your lives for the tricolor flag. You have handled wooden rifles as early as primary school age. Showing you colorful images, you were told: this is war. You have believed the black hussars of the Republic. What is the use of youth? Do you know what youth is like? These are the years when you have no other worry than to look handsome in your well-trimmed clothes. And you are a handsome young man; and I say you have nothing to do here. You should tip your hat when crossing by a young girl whom you find ravishing; you should have fun in the beautiful Parisian districts; you should study for hours and then reward your work by gifting yourself a box of chocolates in Montmartre. But with your evasive gaze, your pencil between your fingers, you think you need a Lebel in your hands! So I have nothing further to add. There's no point in getting tired of convincing the fiery like you. _Dulce and decorum_ is your motto. But do not pretend, if we come to meet again, that I have not warned you. For the few months you will spend at the frontline, you will grow old of so many years that you will not recognize yourself any more. You can only catch wrinkles, young man, when you suddenly allow yourself, in sight and in mass, to kill! Yet I believe you are ready to do this and face the Prussians; but soon you will realize that one does not kill on only one side, and that it is better not to make friendships with anyone in your battalion. You do not yet know what life is; well, you wanted it; you will not have an opportunity to know it now. "

Lacroix did not know how to react to this inflamed speech of a man with so impersonal a gaze. The veteran rose soon, followed by Lacroix, who grabbed his gray-blue coat with haste; the corporal pulled the fabric out of the young man's fingers.

"Summer, my boy, is a bad season to take the key to the fields of honor."

The bearded man had gone. Among all these rich and well-dressed Parisians he looked like a specter, a phantom of the uncivilized lands, who, instead of going to the theater on Sundays, conducted his goats and cultivated his chestnut trees. Lacroix watched him go, dazed. He could see, on the edge of the soldier's mantle, traces of mud rubbed and cleaned in vain, discolored cloth or stains from which he did not want to know the provenance.

Armand had remained silent for minutes which seemed to him hours. He listened to the confused and distant noise of the discussions, the footsteps of the future soldiers in the train, the rattling of the wheels against the rails. Placing his eyes on the sketch he had hardly begun, he grabbed his pencil again and decided to blacken the paper with a brief sketch of the sharp, dark eyes that had fixed him some time before. As if he felt the need to remember that rough and characteristic face, when he knew full well that he was never going to see him again.

The young man, after this drawing session, was alerted by the strange appearance of an individual who was crossing the wagon with slow steps. He was an elderly man dressed in a cassock but wearing an infantry cap and a roughly stitched cross in place of the regimental number. He had recognized the military chaplain who would accompany the Parisian battalions to the front.

A thought came to Lacroix. Exodus 20:13. Thou shalt not kill.  
At this precise moment, the presence of a priest became quite absurd in his eyes, and he mocked silently, his eyes still fixated on his sketchbook, the old man with the rosary. Why would he go to confession to a priest who has chosen to mingle with what was the most terrible offense to the Ten Commandments?

Lacroix had lost his thoughts for a moment, and then had tackled the task of finishing that drawing the uniform of the _vision_  of earlier. The time had passed quickly, however, and the train stopped short in a jolt, surprising the artist who dropped his pencil to the ground. Blushing at his awkwardness, he stood up and placed his top hat on the top of his head. He had been walled up in a profound silence for several hours, and he got off the train in a row with hundreds of strangers whose daily he would share for the duration of the war, which he thought was to last only a few months.

An officer at the exit of the train seemed to stare at him cynically, from head to foot, before confronting Lacroix's shy gaze. This silent exchange promised to the young man the military discipline he feared; it would force him to do many things that he did not want to do except by duty and out of respect for his brother.

In front of him, an immense crowd. Civilian suits mingled with French uniforms and garance red trousers which, as only advantage, skilfully concealed red spots on the fabric. On each side, officers rose their sabers and sometimes yelled frenetically at recruits who were late in dressing up. A great hubbub entwined with patriotic songs and promises of hunting the _Boches_ \- the storm before glory.

Intimidated but no less courageous, Lacroix mingled with the crowd inside the barracks. There were a thousand formalities to be made; embarrassing medical examinations, military booklets to be completed. But what struck his memory the most was the last interview before the delivery of his issued uniform.

"Lacroix, you are literate and intelligent. Do you want to escape from the frontline? I can assign you, if you wish, to the military censorship of the postal services.  
\- Sorry? I'd rather go to the front, sir.  
\- So be it. You will be a second class soldier in the twenty-fourth infantry regiment."

He did not want, that man with fine spirit, to participate in the express censorship of the letters of his comrades and to have the impression of being from the government; he knew very well that from all times of war, they were shamelessly lying to both soldiers and civilians, and he did not want to take part in such a thing. On his way to the non-commissioned officer who was handing him the uniform he was about to put on, Armand saw in his memory the piercing look of the Corsican veteran.  
Soon he thought no more of it and would never ever think more of it. He preferred, the innocent boy, to replace this terrible face by the infinitely more gentle face of his brother in his memory.

Then there was nothing left to do but to walk back to the train. Lacroix wondered if he did not look more ridiculous in his new uniform than in the top hat he had left where he had abandoned his civilian life.


	3. Chapter 3

Abruptly, the young man became acquainted with the military world. He learned to march well, to eat badly, to obey without reflection, to fencer with conscience, to complain in a low voice and to respond aloud. Above all, he learned to abandon the very notion of intimacy. The army was another world where justice rarely reigned.

 

The ‘ace of tile’ on their back, the visor hiding their eyes, these soldiers walked and walked kilometers per kilometer with sore feet, dry throats and hunger in the belly. It was necessary to rally Belgium at all costs; passing by the roads of France, the regiment crossed the civilians fleeing the war. They stared into each other's eyes without saying a word. One of them fled from death; the other went straight ahead of it, with the unconsciousness of youth.

 

Lacroix, to pass time because he suffered from a certain solitude, had in his bandages pocket a letter from Philippe, which he had promised himself to open only during the marches. His first letter contained simple recommendations in which he referred to the first battles against the Germans; " _You will see to it that the sides of your coat are detached, so that neither your trousers nor your cap can be seen since they are a bright red, for you will see that the enemy is better equipped than we are but that we can spot him thanks to his regiment number written, also, in bright red on his spiked helmet. Even if it is our duty to shoot, do not be evil against those who are forcefully armed against us; but I know that you are gentle and that you reluctantly wage war. Write me often._ "

 

He knew that there was nothing more precious than the word of an officer; thus he not only scrupulously respected the word of his brother whom he venerated, but also Armand kept his letters in the inner pocket of his cloak, as if they could give him the sacred blessing which would spare him in the eyes of misfortune.

 

The march was long and painful before joining the rest of the French army. At every turn they dreaded the arrival of the Germans, who never arrived; they dreaded even more the cry of the sergeant who stood ready to point his revolverat the head of any recruit who was late, behind the regiment.

 

As the soldiers approached the front, an officer shouted "Get away! Step aside!" and the _bleuets_ threw themselves into the thickets as one man, fearing an offensive; it was not so; it was the Health Service which crossed the road with great noise.

 

The scene that followed was to remain engraved in the mind of Lacroix for many years. It is necessary to imagine a dozen nurses and surgeon officers who, because of the lack of automobiles, transported their wounded in sorts of rickety carts. All shouted ; some to clear the passage, others because they suffered enormously. Inside the carts was the French cavalry. The cuirassiers, the dragoons, and the chasseurs on horse in their colored uniforms, but above all, colored with red; their beautiful cuirasses and their wonderful helmets pierced through and through. They dipped in the vermilion liquid; some were so disfigured by bullets or explosions that one could no longer recognize their faces, that the chinstraps of their helmets tortured. They were suffocating and agonizing, sobbing in the arms of the nurses.

They were followed by their own beasts, some carrying inert bodies; some other horses were just as badly outgrown as their masters and that, sometimes, were no longer able to stand onto their legs and exhaled loudly.

 

"What is that? asked an infantryman.

"It is the consequence of the machine-gun against which we charge with sabers," replied a surgeon.

 

Lacroix had scarcely noticed that the sergeant had already left, and quickly. His eyes were fixated on the French horsemen, his mouth was half open, and he felt himself trembling, like all his comrades.

The realization, perhaps, that _simple will_ could do little against an explosion of shrapnels.

 

He noticed in his morbid contemplation that a stretcher-bearer had detached himself from the funeral cortege to follow the regiment with hurried steps. He had green eyes, a brown beard, but his face was infinitely milder than the Corsican’s, who was the only soldier to whom Lacroix had spoken in the last few days; and confronting this look brought him out of his reverie. The medic wiped his hands with disgust on the bottom of his coat before questioning the non-commissioned officer:

 

"Aye, sergeant! It was I who was supoposed to be attached to the 24th Infantry Regiment, I hope I was not mistaken because I've run quite enough like that. Is this the right regiment?

\- Your name, stretcher-bearer?

\- Sébastien Leroy, sergeant.

"Go back into the ranks and try to be silent; your little show put my men behind."

 

Lacroix had turned his eyes from the scene, adjusting his straps before he began to walk behind the other soldiers. Sébastien stood right beside him, but the blond did not look at him, his eyes fixed on his boots that had been drenched in the mud. The best way to not feel the pain of the muscles was to think of something else.

This terrible silence seemed to annoy the stretcher-bearer, who was rather accustomed to cries and din, and seized the shoulder of his companion.

 

"What, the cuirassiers have traumatized you?" It's nothing.

\- It's already too much. "

 

Lacroix was visibly nervous that he had been disturbed, and raised his eyes to Sébastien who continued speaking without feeling too offended :

 

"You come from Paris. That beautiful accent, that moustache, your noble looks...

\- That is true.

\- I am from Picardy. Have you ever been there? It's not the same as Paris, but..."

 

The bearded man stopped short when he saw that the Parisian was not answering. What a strange figure was this man who, to fill his grief, preferred silence to discussion. What grief exactly? He did not know yet.

One could hear the rhythmic sound of the studded shoes sinking into the dirt roads. On the horizon, noises of explosions and shooting approached more and more as the march progressed. It was an unknown noise to all these conscripts; it was the machine-gun that finished off the last horsemen, or farther, in primitive trenches, shells whistling before crashing to the ground.

Lacroix swallowed anxiously when he saw the first barricades which the Germans had built at the entrance of the Belgian villages, and preferred to change his mind by turning to the other soldiers to detail their faces and particularities; finally, he observed Sébastien, and a particular detail struck him.

 

"Leroy, you do not have a rifle?

\- Of course not! I am a stretcher bearer. I do not shoot anyone.

\- But the Germans will not hesitate to aim at you!

\- They would not dare, I have an armband with a red cross on it.

\- You're wrong, they shoot as soon as they see blue or red. They do not question...

\- Who told you that ?

\- My brother. He is a lieutenant in the 28th Infantry Regiment.

\- Then your brother says that because he shoots as soon as he sees feldgrau, without questioning himself.

\- You insult my brother?! I do not allow you..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "ace of tile" or "as de carreau" was the nickname given by the soldiers to their issued backpack.


	4. Chapter 4

The two soldiers seemed ready to cling to each other’s collar, but the Germans had taken them beforehand. From behind the empty houses emerged a column of feldgrau uniforms and spiked helmets, which, on seeing the French, immediately laid down on the ground to fire. By reflex, Sébastien enclosed the martingale of Armand's back to drag him into the thickets where ih would be less visible, while the sergeant of the battalion shouted to start the assault. Barely having had time to realize the scene, Lacroix only saw a ball whistling and going through the spot where he was, a second before. Then several bullets. In fact, hundreds of bullets - and soldiers falling like dominoes. Everywhere, screams in German, French; petitions and prayers; the noise of the machine-gun which twisted their ears and pulled out their eardrums. Sebastien stood up under Lacroix's stunned gaze; he was already running to assist the wounded.

 

Threatened by the corporal on duty, the blond straightened up and seized his Lebel, hands shaking violently, barely succeeding in grabbing the breech to insert cartridges.

He stood up, aimed just a few centimeters below a spiked helmet’s ledge - one could see the _red numbers_ that Philippe had talked about - but Lacroix saw a face that resembled his own, that of a young man hardly more than twenty years old, who looked incredulously at the end of the French gun. His tremors redoubled in intensity, his heart beat violently against his breast, but the sergeant observed the scene with a threatening expression; and panic made him act faster than he thought he would. Lacroix pressed the trigger, the cartouche started with a brief blow and pierced the leather helmet of the German whose head fell stiffly on the ground.

All this had happened in two or three seconds - and the Frenchman had turned around, letting a cry of anguish, an interminable sob, escape from his lips. He had killed a man.

 

He did not have time to think. A non-commissioned officer urged him to join the others and to walk on inert bodies whose nationality he did not want to know. Lacroix felt himself almost fainting every second, and he struggled to keep up with the rhythm. It had happened too quickly, he had not had time to realize - but now it was necessary to aim and shoot and kill and obey to the shameless cries of the madmen who demanded the murder of the Boches!

 

Lacroix did not want to die. He did not know yet, the poor young man, that Sébastien had already taken him out of the trajectory of a bullet; and it had taken so much hesitation to finally decide to do like all the others, because some Germans would not have so much scruple to make him fall. He did not want to count the bullets, bringing his hand to his cartridge pouch only when he realized, often too late, that the breech was empty.

 

All of this had happened in a few minutes. After this brief and violent skirmish, silence fell on the Belgian village. The only cry which resounded after the withdrawal of the Germans was from a Frenchman to another Frenchman who pointed, from the end of his Lebel, at black silhouettes in the distance: "Lower your weapon, crazy man! They are Belgian soldiers...! "

 

The only one who was still running was Sébastien, who was carrying, away from the battle, Frenchmen and Germans without distinction. Lacroix removed his cap in front of the lugubrious spectacle of green and blue uniforms that stretched before him. He trembled with all his being, but his throat remained dry, like his eyes; finally, he accustomed himself to the _dead of the month of August_.

 

What a strange sight, these Belgian carabiniers, who were going to battle while wearing some sort of top hat, called Corsican hats ; black coats and German equipment. The officers spoke French, the troops spoke Dutch, and all of this gave rise to unfortunate misunderstandings, as it was the case in the French army between Bretons and Basques.

 

Lacroix trampled on the motionless arm of a Prussian soldier who no longer breathed; he saw a sort of notebook in the pocket of his jacket. He pulled it out of his pocket and opened it, letting his fingers slide over the pages and trying to hold his gaze away from the body itself. Of course, everything was written in German, with a pencil; but from time to time, leafing through the pages, he saw sketches of a woman, always the same. There, a photograph of two little girls. At the end, the drawing of German soldiers in blue uniforms.

 

Seeing that the Prussian still had his identity plate, the blond slid again the notebook where it was before, picked up. Of course, he knew there was little difference between their two peoples, but he could not help wondering if he could have met this artist in peacetime, make a friend of him, share their common passion - voluntarily, by exercise of the spirit, Lacroix refrained, however, from thinking of this woman to whom this terrible death would be announced, or worse still, if it were his own rifle which had put an end to the life of that enemy.

 

All the while, as he was plunged into these thoughts, the voices outside had subsided and as he raised his head, the young man suddenly became aware of what was around him. Belgian officers discussed with the French officers; the troopers sang "La Marseillaise" or "La Brabançonne". The first anthem called much more for a massacre than the second one, and Lacroix would always think of that poor Prussian when, each morning, at the rising of the colors, he would be asked to sing that hymn he had previously played at the Opera - and which he would despise more and more.

 

Spanning the gunners and the fusiliers on the ground to rejoin his comrades, Lacroix looked for the bearded stretcher-bearer, not much interested in the sergeant, who congratulated himself on his bravery. When he finally found Sébastien, he noticed the sweat that perpeated his forehead and the absence of the smile that characterized him.

 

"Leroy..." Lacroix began.

The medic turned towards the blond, as if waiting for something special - of course, he still remembered taking Lacroix off the trajectory of a _sibilant_.

"Uh... I do not know what to say.

\- You could thank me, maybe," Sebastien retorted.

 

Lacroix only replied with a grunt, since he thought that Leroy was taking a hostile tone, and picked up his rifle to follow the rest of the column - it was without counting on the will of Sébastien who held him there by the martingale – still.

 

"What’s going on? You set fire to two or three cartridges and now, you're traumatized? You know what it is, the trenches on the Western border? It's much worse. You are well off in Belgium.

"Thank you, Leroy, I really needed this support," Lacroix commented sarcastically.

"Listen to me... sorry. I was as shocked as you when I came here. But it's over, the little walks in the Jardin du Luxembourg and on the grand boulevards. Do not worry too much, okay? The war will end in a few months. We'll all be back for Christmas. "

 

Lacroix nervously tapped the ground with the butt of his rifle, trampling the mud to evacuate the frustration he held painfully.

 

"I saw you reading this notebook just now. What did you learn?

\- That I should not search dead bodies.

\- That's all?

\- It hurt my heart. I do not want to think about it.

\- But you have to think about it. Why should this Prussian have written it? Do you think his family would like to have no news of him? Believe it or not, it is his ultimate testimony. It is his gaze affixed to these pages. I started doing the same thing, too. I'm not a good writer, but it helps me... to endure. In a few years I shall read all these horrors, and I shall laugh.

\- That's carefree.

\- That's optimism," Sebastien corrected. "You do not spend a life without facing a war. Literally and metaphorically. You are shocked? Well, that will fade away. Smile is the prerogative of the bleuet, just like tears. You will be bored, but you will not sob anymore. Cheer up!"

 

The blonde was silent, staring at the stretcher-bearer in deep silence. He had realized, perhaps, that he had badly started his friendship with that soul so similar to his own, and whose light counterbalanced perfectly his black moods.

 

"I cruelly lacked politeness. My name is Armand Lacroix. Enchanted to meet you," he concluded, clasping the hand of his interlocutor warmly.


End file.
